Week 61: Dumbledore... Cheetos... I'm still laughing

Super Missionaries! 

So this week was a lot of fun for us. Elder Vazquez and I get along pretty well. He is a fun guy, but it’s easy to write him off because he is really kind of a serious guy. When you warm up to him, he’s funny and very open to mess around. 

We had our first kind of goofy experience while at a members house. She is known for giving references to the missionaries, her name is Hermana Pacheko and she is about 65-70 years old. She dyes her hair red, and she is just a funny person all around. There was one point where she was talking about how close she was to the old mission president, but she couldn’t remember his name. So Elder Vazquez put her knowledge to the test. He asked her a few names off the top of his head and if she remembered. She started thinking, and said no. So Vazquez started saying names from movies like ''President Potter?'' no she responds, ''President Frodo?'' once again no. Then my comp yells, ''Entonces era President Dumbledore!'' and she responds, oh yeah it is him, I knew him since we were young. I laughed so hard I was dead I couldn’t stop laughing, the poor lady.

This is Valeria's little brother. John Carlos his nicknames= botas or pelón
botas=boots  pelón=bald

Now I have to get to the little kid I have in this weeks photos. He is the little brother of our baptism of Valeria. He is very funny and misbehaves. So on Sunday Valeria brought him with her for her confirmation. He starts it off running around with his Cheetos in the church, he ends up falling and Cheetos go flying everywhere! I mean everywhere. Well, he started crying and so we helped save some of his precious Cheetos. 

Then here comes the best part. We are in the sacrament meeting and the sacrament is being passed, we are all reverent, but little BOTAS is going crazy. He’s running in the aisles and doing his own thing really, but so far not really bothering anyone. Me and my companion are really calm and relaxed... and then Botas makes a break for the piano on the stand! We are holding our breath as he trying to open the piano... I’m frozen, I don’t know if I can get up and stop him or if that interrupts the ordinance...? I don’t have kids... I froze, okay. You wouldn’t think a little kid should be able to open the piano, but with pure luck-- he gets the piano open! I can still hear his gleeful yell! It still makes me laugh! ''PIANO!!!'' And then you can guess... he strikes the keys in full fervor in the middle of the sacrament meeting! I was dying. A loving sister of the ward eased him off the stand and took him outside. 

The ward in my new area is very nice. It is known as one of the “magic wards” of the mission, because the missionaries always get references and the work basically does it itself. There are a lot of members here that want to help.

I’m really excited for this next change. It’s going to be good.

Love you guys!

Keep Truckin’

We found these masks in a members house my first day here in Country.  I think the lady's name is Hermana Duron. They live in the area Los Laureles. We are opening a new area there and just showed them the house they will be meeting at.

These are some of the missionaries in our zone: Elder Sullivan (St George), Elder Jimenez (Mexicon), Me, Elder Vazquez (Puebla Mexico), Hermana Cronin (Mississippi), Hermana Rojas (Costa Rica), and Hermana Laz (Guatemala).

We baptized 2 this week.
The little boys name is Jose Angel Rivas Velazquez. 

The girl we baptized is Ana Valeria Lopez Mendoza.  She is thirteen and her little brother is so funny.  He is the boy I was writing about in my letter this week. 

These are some members that were instrumental in helping Valeria get baptized.  Hermana Olga (I know right?) is the one in the blue and Vanessa is the girl in red.

John Carlos, Botas, or Pelón loves the Cheetos!

missionaries in our goofy district

The COUNTRY House

The casa in Country

Elder Vazquez and I are the Zone Leaders in the Country zone and the area we cover is called Santa Fe. The Country Zone covers missionaries in Santa Fe, Quezada, 21 de Febrero, Laureles, Residenciales, Las Mercedes, and El Country mission areas.

I found these sunglasses in the house. Magnum PI? I think they are cool and I might come home with them.
(mom thinks they're HIP-py!

my desk in the Country house.

This is the desk of Elder Vazquez. Back on the wall is where we keep track of our zone numbers.
Fechas are normally missionary set baptismal dates and citas are like appointments.

I live the life! this is where I sleep.

Grateful for this shower!
I get to . . . 

. . . RESET THE WAR CLOCK!!
This shower has warm water.  I will enjoy my time here in Country!

my closet like area.  My sneaks are still surviving!

Our kitchen.  Our apartment is nice.

A cool thing about this area is that there is a tailor here.  He is known for doing amazing suits. I've been thinking about getting a new suit since the one I have is really, really big.  Every time I put it on I feel like a weight watchers commercial.  Even President Ferman called me out last Wednesday.  We were giving a presentation to the new missionaries that arrived and President talked about my weight loss and showed a photo of fat me when I arrived to the mission field.  

February 7, 2017 - my airport arrival to Honduras from the Guatemala CCM
Meeting President and Sister Ferman for the first time

February 12, 2018 - 1 year in Honduras with my companion Elder Huscroft and President and Sister Ferman.
This mission is a lot of walking and the terrain is all hilly and mountainous. We missionaries work our butts off.

So anyways... the cool thing is the guy does suits tailor fitted for about 75 bucks, thats 1600 to 1800 limps.  He says I can pick whatever colors I want.  I don't know if I could do that? or if it would be a burden... just let me know.

(we told Christian to have a suit made and ask if the guy is able to tailor some of his 😉baggy pants.)

anyways... Saturday, March 3, 2018 here in Tegucigalpa we have a meeting with Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve! It's something awesome.  I enjoy it when a member of the Twelve or the Seventy comes to speak to us.  A lot of the times they end with a Q&A. It's cool to have them answer questions on an individual level. We are definitely looking forward to next Saturday!  

Week 60: Headed to Country

This is the Soleno Family! There are six kids. Jeffrey (in the blue shirt) is the oldest, he is the father of the little little girl. On the far left is Jimmy, he is the second oldest. Barbara (20) and Isa (16) is behind her mom, she doesn't like photos.  Willy (12) is in front by me.  They have another little girl Sina (5), but she was sick and asleep when we took the photos.

So another week down and another change. I will be going to the city in a zone called Country. My new companion will be Elder Vazquez. I don’t know if you guys remember him from one of my last changes around last May/June. While I was serving in Campamento with Elder Valdetano he was companions with Elder Zachreson in Guaimaca. He is from Puebla Mexico. I now have had every Elder that is from Puebla Mexico as my companion in the mission, crazy huh? 

--but yeah, this week we had a leadership counsel and President commented on a couple things our zone could do better. It is just sad for me that I won’t be there to carry it out. My time with Elder Huscroft has come to an end. I am very happy that I could have him as my companion. 

Another set back happened this week-- Huscroft got really sick and we couldn’t work for a while. All the gringo’s here call it the Juticalpa Bug. Seriously, almost every gringo that comes out to Olancho gets really sick and you just can’t work for a bit. We did what we were supposed to. I am leaving Juticalpa and feel that the Lord is satisfied by our work. I’m going to be packing most of my p-day and making sure everything is good here for when Elder Huscroft’s new companion shows up, so that they can kick it right off.

Hope everyone had a good week. I am including photos of a family I worked with for most of my 3 changes here, the Soleno family. They are so much fun and the father has overcome so much to prepare to go to the temple in a little while with his family to claim the blessings therein. 

My new area is like in the smack-dab middle of Tegucigalpa almost. I will be a little bit further in than the zone Torocagua. If you want a reference, Bulevar is the outskirt (or the Nueva) then Torocagua where I was during the lockdown and then Country moves a little farther into the city. So it will really be my first city area. I’ll be on guard for more robbery attempts, but I know if I follow the rules I will be blessed and shouldn’t have any problems.

I love you guys! Hope you have a fantastic week and can keep loving the Lord and his gospel! I know it’s true and it brings peace and strength to our lives if we seek it out. I love you guys and 

keep truckin’

This is the Father. His name is German. He is a school director.  The Soleno's live about 25-30 minutes walking distance from our house.

German is a lot like my dad-- if ya know what I mean... he is funny and he is a very loving man.  He loves his family and every missionary that walks through his door.

Me on Pday after our morning workout.  We are at the church and had just finished some P90X.

Week 59: interview and an answered prayer

We had interviews with the President.  President and Sister Ferman are both converts. This is their first mission and they are serving it together. Sister Ferman is really funny.  She has some funny stories about their training in the Provo MTC. The stories really sum up their marriage she says.  She always tries to speak English with the gringo's because she wants to learn.

So- I have said in numerous weekly letters that I have been doing really good all in all for our zone, but rather bad specifically for the area that my companion and I have been assigned. It has suffered. We have been working hard in interchanges and making sure the other areas are becoming model areas. I think this next week we will definitely be focusing on our area. We did have some fun in interchanges and we are helping a lot. 

I had an interview with President Ferman this past week. In his interview with me he told me he was very proud of the changes and progress of Elder Huscroft and I and that he is glad we are fulfilling our plans and assignments as zone leaders.  I am very proud of our zone and glad the Lord is blessing our work. I hope we can continue with this. 

We had some interchanges on Friday. I went to Guayape and Elder Huscroft stayed in Juticalpa. I worked with the scheduled baptismal dates there and helped answer some of the investigators questions. It was a lot of fun to have a day in Cata Camas. It is way cooler there than here in Juticalpa! It felt relaxing. 

On Sunday Huscroft and I spent a lot of time contacting, but by the end of the day we only had one new interested person. It was very strange. So we had the idea to pray. We did, we asked the Lord to direct us to somebody who wanted to hear the gospel and that was ready to hear our message. We then contacted three more doors all of which said no. Then on the fourth we knocked and a lady answered the door. She came right out and was interested. It was so crazy! I was pretty awestruck. 

Her name is Dolly and she is very nice and she wants to learn more. She currently doesn’t go to a church, but knows and feels that she needs God in her life. I REALLY HOPE SHE CAN KEEP PROGRESSING. We have a visit with her this Thursday. Wish us luck. 

Not much else happened this week. I have learned and do know that prayers are answered according to our faith. I have come to realize that by acting on our faith we were blessed, and that there was somebody who needed to hear us where we were contacting, and we found her! I hope we can all pray this week for what we need with faith so it may come to pass. I know that if it is just, the Lord will give us what we desire.  

Hope we can all do this, Love you all!  

keep truckin’

We saw this path on our way to an appt to a members house. We thought we'd take the shortcut. It turned out to be a creepy grove.  It was full of clothes, bones, and alcoholic beverage bottles. Something had to have gone down there.  

The path ended at a big thorny bush.  We are never walking through there again!
Honduras definitely needs us to "Adopt" this area.

These cute girls remind me of my little sisters.  Their names are Sophie and Valeria.  They are children of a member.  We were at a sister's house whose name is Hermana Lily.  (Their strangled doll play also reminds me of my sisters (pic on right))

We named this cow that we ran into a couple of weeks ago.  I don't know how, but he escapes and we always run into him in different spots.

This is Elder Huscroft's drawing of Little Beefy.
The cow likes to walk behind us sometimes but never gets too close. 
He might want to hear our message. What do you think? 
He is so funny. I think I might be able to get on and ride him one day. Little Beefy is my friend.

Week 58: freaky spiders and mountain house medicine

 a Spinyback Orb Weaver Spider, or crab spider 

This week was good. It felt really short. We had some luck finding new people to teach and we enjoyed a calm week as well. One of the best parts of Juticalpa is how calm it is. It´s like I´m in Honduras, but at the same time I´m not, I get to say I´m in Honduras without all of the political problems or danger that is now relatively calming down. 

Elder Huscroft and I are still working hard and we are focusing on finding people that can really progress. We had a couple of people go to church this week who originally we hadn´t met. Some members of our branch brought them to church and they really enjoyed the services. 

Um, one of the highlights/downsides of the week was another douse of food poisoning! We didn´t get to work on Wednesday, but we made it up for it the last part of the week. I did finally crack in to some of the package food and I made a Mountain House bag of lasagna. It was sooo good to have some ´´parmasean´´ cheese and some kind of real tomato sauce.

The zone here in Juticalpa was in a dire strait, but we´ve worked our way out. We now have more investigators attending church than I´ve ever seen here. It is so nice to see a little fruit for our labors, but I know this is just a start and we have to keep going. 

The last couple months we´ve had challenges with some people who have said that they would like to be baptized... then the date arrives and they get cold feet. We are still focusing on these people and we are finding it´s little things you wouldn´t even guess that are a problem for somebody. Like, for instance an 18 year old who ends up not wanting to get baptized cause she doesn´t like being submerged in water.  (things like that that you would never expect) 

Our zone is finding out that the key to preparing the people is love. One of the things I am learning about the mission is if there is someone who is preparing to be baptized and they don´t have a teacher who loves them they will never be ready. It can be compared to what ever skill or talent we want to develop. 1) If we don´t have a desire we´ll never want to develop and change so we will be the same as before and 2) if we don´t have a teacher who loves and wants the best for us we´ll never have teaching that is lasting. 

One of the things I’m soo grateful for were loving seminary teachers, young men´s leaders and parents who have helped me throughout my life and am thankful now for companions who help me daily. 

I´m so happy to be able to learn to be more like Jesus Christ by being one of his representatives. I´ve come to love everyday and I know as I get closer to the end of my mission I´ll want more time. I know I have to make everyday count. I hope and pray I can keep loving more and working as hard as I can for as long as I can. I hope to grow to have a similar vision and love for missionary work as did Spencer W Kimball.

I love you guys and hope you all have a fantastic week!

keep truckin´ 

Mountain House Lasagna - nothing like the taste of American tomato sauce!

We were visiting in Campamento and we went to an American restaurant.  I got this burger. It was soooooooo flippin' good!

This spider is crazy looking. It freaked me out because it landed on my desk.

I call this the devil or demon spider.

Elder Huscroft - having fun with my stuff! (my shirt, my bandana, and my knife)

We have heard that our mission president will be released in July.  We are getting a new Mission President.  Marvin E. and Diana E. Mejía

I look forward to the change, but also dread it because it´s like a missionary farewell. He interviews us once every six weeks but as a leader I also see him at least once a month. President Ferman will have served the time that the Lord allotted him.  I am sure he is looking forward to getting home and also to see the progress within the mission.